Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The untergang of the abendlandes is earmarked by terminological confusion. That is, it would be if untergangen had ears. At least it is in terminological ferment, and ferment might make good beer, though usually it is dark and skunky. (Skunky being a technical term in brewing that means.... Well, you can easily imagine what it means. However, the good news, should you be desperate enough, is that no organism harmful to man can survive in beer, so while skunky beer may stink like a politician's promise, it won't make you sick. Well, not physically. Psychosomatically, who can say. You can, however, hold your nose and quaff.)

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Lunacon 2013, reduced to desperation and barrel-bottom scraping, has persuaded TOF to be their Author Guest of Honor, in lieu of a more honorable author-guest. TOF will of course do his darnedest, and is pleased as Hubert Humphrey's punch, as well as tickled pink. (Thus demonstrating his masterful command of the English tongue.)

There is a certain nonchalance on the part of Catholics regarding their saints. René Goupil, killed by Mohawks with a blow to the head, is today the patron
saint of anesthetists. St. Lawrence, roasted on a griddle, is the patron of short-order cooks. St. Barbara, whose father was struck by lightning after he had beheaded her, became the patron saint of artillerymen. (When I was in Artillery ROTC, the corps paraded each year down Broad St. to St. Barbara's Church for the annual Artillerymen's Mass.)

Pithy Quotes

By
1960 the price of a good 1900 reproduction of, say, a Louis XVI table
had risen, sometimes to fantastic heights -- probably because people
knew that with the disappearance of craftsmanship even such
reproductions were no longer reproducible.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

A blogger yclept Adam Gropnik at The New Yorker has averred, relative to that topic, that "It is conscious, thinking life that counts." It is not the
lives of all members of the species radically endowed with the capacity
for conscious, thinking life–it is all those actually presently enjoying
the conscious life.

Were I he, I should be wary of falling asleep and thereby not counting.
+ + +

Friday, October 12, 2012

Alcibiades: I approve of A.Socrates: But then surely you have a reason for your approval?Alc.: Certes. I approve of A because it lacks property X!Soc.: But then you must also approve of B, because B also lacks property X.Alc.: What? No! That is awful. A is worthy because of... because of condition Y.